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Orbit by Mozilla

orbitbymozilla.com

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Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#301

Post by freehorse »

worksonmine wrote: post #269
IshKebab wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their browser is fine. But so is Chrome, and Chrome wins by default because it's installed by default on Android and Android really pushes you to it. Once you're using Chrome on Android and have all your passwords saved there, Firefox is a difficult sell. I can't think of a single Firefox feature that's better than "I don't have to faff around with passwords". Maybe if they allowed adblock on mobile, but last I check…

> Maybe if they allowed adblock on mobile, but last I checked they were fannying around requiring nightly builds and whitelisting extensions... uBlock origin has been one of the allowed extensions for years. As far as I know it's the only browser allowing extensions on phones. It's a shame the allowed extensions is limited compared to desktop but I use uBlock everywhere anyway. What adblocker are you trying to instal…

> As far as I know it's the only browser allowing extensions on phones

In iOS, Orion browser allows both chrome and firefox extensions. Not all of them actually work, but ub:o does. Prob the only way to run ub:o on an iphone.

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#303

Post by DoctorOW »

i_love_retros wrote: post #300
silisili wrote: post #168

Mozilla will spend any amount it takes to do anything but build a better browser.

What's wrong with Firefox?

It could have been nice to see the Rust rewrites finished instead of shelved due to costs. AI is very expensive so if they have the money for this, they could've probably started that up again. Firefox is generally good feature wise but Google gets to almost usurp the W3C because pretty much every other browser is using the Chromium codebase over Mozilla's.

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#304

Post by slightwinder »

kome wrote: post #192
mentalgear wrote: post #181

I'm reading a lot of criticism here, some I understand, but honestly, this sounds pretty good for a free LLM service: "Orbit doesn't require account creation or save your session data." Maybe we shouldn't be too critical of Mozilla for providing a privacy-first LLM service - for free. The other big privacy-first LLM provider is Apple, which requires users to have their devices/subscriptions to use, and definitely use…

[flagged]

HN in general is not fine with tracking and surveillance. But this is irrelevant for Mozilla specifically, as most companies/projects are not selling themselves on high privacy and rescuing the internet. They are making goal and promises which they repeatedly fail to reach, and people are outcalling them for this. And the worst part is, they are not even not holding up to their own standards, they even ignored and broke them multiple times, and people remember.

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#305

Post by freehorse »

zozbot234 wrote: post #295
Kuinox wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a local device LLM, outdated of a whole year, which is massive for LLMs, running on servers. Privacy side, there is little reason to run this on servers, a Pixel 6 could run 7B models at 5 token/s a year ago. It's bad by incompetence, 7B models of a year ago were terribly bad. It's not privacy-first enough, as it's possible to run the AI directly in the browser, but for some reason they didnt do it.

> it's possible to run the AI directly in the browser, but for some reason they didnt do it. Perhaps this is a proof of concept and they will have optional Firefox integration at a later time. Firefox uses local AI for webpage translation already.

A locally run 7B model would consume a lot of resources for most people, but it would be nice as an option.

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#307

Post by yoyohello13 »

dageshi wrote: post #196
silisili wrote: post #168

Mozilla will spend any amount it takes to do anything but build a better browser.

Firefox is genuinely fine, great even, I've used it for years and have no complaints. But you notice in all these threads, everyone who theoretically ought to use Firefox comes up with their own little list of nitpicks that justify them not using it. "I can't use it because I was disgusted when they dropped feature x" "I won't use it because they spent their money on feature y instead of just doing z" Meanwhile Chrom…

People just like to justify their choices. Whether it Windows or Chrome they will shout from the rooftops about how the open source/privacy respecting thing doesn't do X, but then totally absolve the massive company for doing another anti-consumer/anti-privacy thing. The conclusion is that privacy and software freedom are just not important to the majority of people.

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#308

Post by legacynl »

rpastuszak wrote: post #232
caoilte wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

people will blame anyone for anything. mozilla is a non-profit so doesn't need to respond to market signals. it would do a lot more and a lot more sustainably if it focused on the core mission of its browser. but these costly "big swings" justify outrageous compensation packages for its executives and so it lets its browser wither.

> it would do a lot more and a lot more sustainably if it focused on the core mission of its browser. Some numbers to put things in perspective: https://untested.sonnet.io/notes/defaults-matter-dont-assume... FF is still a solid choice, privacy-wise (with some manual tweaking), but just in the past few years 80-90% of their revenue came from adtech partnerships, so expect a series of rug pulls like the recent ones.

> so expect a series of rug pulls like the recent ones.

I think it's rather the other way around; i.e. it is you that should lower your expectations from a free tool provided by a non-profit company.

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#309

Post by slightwinder »

IshKebab wrote: post #205
silisili wrote: post #168

Mozilla will spend any amount it takes to do anything but build a better browser.

Their browser is fine. But so is Chrome, and Chrome wins by default because it's installed by default on Android and Android really pushes you to it. Once you're using Chrome on Android and have all your passwords saved there, Firefox is a difficult sell. I can't think of a single Firefox feature that's better than "I don't have to faff around with passwords". Maybe if they allowed adblock on mobile, but last I check…

Firefox loses, because they are doing barely anything to be better than chrome. Brave, Opera, Vivaldi, they all build and sell their own unique identity and seem to be successful enough with it. But Firefox? Basically just exists. Something about privacy and not being the big kraken, but so are all other now too. In the meanwhile Mozilla is just continuing wasting money on pointless projects which do nothing to solidify their cash cows future, while adding nothing of worth.

Yes, the default Browser wins (which BTW is not always Chrome), and Mozilla does not put up a fight to change it.

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#310

Post by daeken »

ksec wrote: post #291
mentalgear wrote: post #181

I'm reading a lot of criticism here, some I understand, but honestly, this sounds pretty good for a free LLM service: "Orbit doesn't require account creation or save your session data." Maybe we shouldn't be too critical of Mozilla for providing a privacy-first LLM service - for free. The other big privacy-first LLM provider is Apple, which requires users to have their devices/subscriptions to use, and definitely use…

>Maybe we shouldn't be too critical of Mozilla for providing a privacy-first LLM service It is just Mozilla have a tendency of chasing hype rather than focusing on what they are doing. During early smartphone era they spend most of the resources trying to write an OS with Javascript ( Firefox OS ) that works on a $35 Smartphone. Now they are doing it again with AI. Although this time around Firefox is in fairly good…

I don't think the Firefox OS team was ever bigger than maybe 100 people at the absolute most, and I feel like it was closer to half of that. Admittedly it's been over a decade since I left, so my recollection could be wrong, but it was never "most of the resources" by any metric.

It was a tiny percentage of the overall staff; I traveled to the Toronto office to work with some of the graphics devs (the area I primarily worked in) and the floor we were on easily had 200 people in that one -- relatively small -- location.

B2G/FFOS gets a lot of well-deserved hate -- I quit after a year -- but its impact has been wildly blown out of proportion.

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